Snowden then accessed and downloaded secret NSA documents with that information

A new detail about the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) leaks has emerged: agency employees gave former NSA contractor Edward Snowden their login credentials.

According to a new report from Reuters, Snowden conned between 20 to 25 NSA employees to give him their login credentials and passwords. Snowden did this while working as a computer systems administrator at the NSA regional operations center for a month in Hawaii last spring.

Snowden reportedly told the NSA employees that he needed their passwords in order to do his job.

However, Snowden used their information to access classified documents that he wasn't supposed to see. He downloaded tens of thousands of secret NSA documents (as well as documents from its British counterpart, Government Communication Headquarters) as a result, and leaked them to the media.

The report added that a "handful" of NSA employees who gave their passwords to Snowden were identified and removed from their assignments. It wasn't clear whether they were put on other assignments or fired.

This new information regarding Snowden's use of NSA passwords was revealed when the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee approved a bill that will strengthen security over U.S. intelligence data. The bill will push for the installation of new software that can identify and track attempts to access or download secret materials without authorization.

In addition, the bill will require intelligence contractors to immediately report to spy agencies on incidents in which data networks have been accessed by unauthorized personnel.

Last month, it was reported that the NSA didn't install the most up-to-date, anti-leak software at the Hawaii operations center before Snowden arrived there for work.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt recently called the NSA's spying on data centers "outrageous" and that its strategies of pulling hundreds of millions of records to find a few hundred is "bad public policy" and even "illegal."

It's easy to say that now, but if you are not that familiar with the technology, and you have the administrator convincing you that he needs your credentials in order to solve a problem - maybe one that he created himself for the sole purpose of getting your credentials - and he seems personable, and the reason sounds legitimate, you might think, "OK, whatever, just do what you need to do so I can get back to work."

If everybody followed protocol on everything, all the time, working conditions in most places would be nearly unbearable, and almost nothing would actually get done.